aux étoiles... was conceived as a study on a very small quote from Messiaen’s Des Canyons aux Étoiles..., namely the final three diads that the solo percussionists play in the final movement. I chose to use the same two instruments (glockenspiel and xylophone) plus two woodblocks. The compositional style was mostly intuitive/improvisational. This notion was taken further with the superimposition of a recording, which is a time-stretched recording of the same section of the Messiaen work. Finally, I designed some basic live processing of the live percussion to emulate birdcalls. The result is a kind of lush structured improvisation, punctuated by conversing birds.

First performance: June 8, 2014. duplicity by Bricolage Collective, performed by Kaylie Melville and Rebecca Lloyd-Jones.